Rita Marhaug – Norway

Rita is a visual artist with emphasis on performance art, drawing and printmaking. Recently she has been working on several series of performances captured as photos in what are, for her, familiar landscapes: the woods behind her home in Bergen, and the sea shore by her second home in Lofoten.

Rita will be completing her residency with Traci Kelly and Nisa Ojalvo. Kelly/Marhaug/Ojalvo is an international collaboration (UK, Norway,USA) dedicated to making site specific performance for camera in a varied natural landscape is a vital strand of her artistic development and output. Their formation spans performance, photography, video, sculpture and installation. They are currently creating a body of work entitled Lånt Landskap/Borrowed Landscape, a series in three parts, each part situated in one of the artists’ home country. The first phase took place in Norway during a 2-week road trip beginning in Bergen and travelling along the coast up to the Lofoten archipelago in the Arctic Circle. She will join her collaborators and situate Phase II in Wales with the aid of the Stiwdio Maelor residency, thus tying their collaboration to the UK. During the 2-week period they will embark on a process of excavating site and self, making physical, conceptual and historical investigations into the local materiality, culture and context of Lower Corris and adjacent locales. This would involve a particular inquiry into slate and stone quarrying and mining activity. Their future Phase III is planned for 2017 in the USA, where the work from Norway and Wales would be joined by further site specific collaboration in America. When completed, exhibitions and a publication of all three phases is envisaged.